K8T890

As the PC increasingly deals with demanding entertainment and multimedia applications, such as high definition video and the latest 3D games, ever increasing demands are being placed on system bandwidth. To meet these changing requirements the industry is transitioning to PCI Express connectivity, which delivers the bandwidth needed for today’s most bandwidth hungry applications, as well providing the headroom needed for future generations of applications.

The first PCI Express chipset for the AMD platform, the VIA K8T890 chipset is designed to fully meet the increased system bandwidth demands placed on the PC. Designed to support a complete range of AMD Athlon™ 64, Athlon 64 FX, Opteron™, and Sempron™ processors, the VIA K8T890 delivers high performance, comprehensive features, and rock solid stability. The K8T890 chipset is optimized to work seamlessly with the latest PCI Express graphics cards, featuring a PCI Express x16 connection for up to 4GB/s of dedicated graphics bandwidth per direction, and provides four PCI Express x1 connections. Each 1x PCI Express connection provides 250MB/s per direction bandwidth to PCI Express peripheral devices such as Gigabit Ethernet and HDTV tuner cards.

The VIA K8T890 chipset has received PCI-Express certification, having successfully completed the rigorous testing procedures of the PCI-SIG Compliance Workshop.

The VIA K8T890 integrates VIA’s Hyper8 technology supporting a 1GHz/16-bit HyperTransport processor-to-chipset link, that delivers up to 8GB/s of bandwidth to help ensure all AMD64 processor-based systems achieve their full performance potential. The VIA K8T890 chipset also utilizes asynchronous bus architecture, providing improved system optimization options to enable power users to squeeze the very most out of their systems.

For connectivity to the South Bridge the VIA K8T890 features a high bandwidth Ultra V-Link bus to allow communication between the chipset North and South bridges at a blazing 1GB/s. When combined with solutions such as the market-leading VIA VT8237R Plus South Bridge and a broad array of VIA companion chips, the VIA K8T890 chipset provides the most comprehensive range of storage, multimedia and connectivity features available for the AMD64 processor platform today, including native Serial ATA and V-RAID, 6-channel or 8-channel VIA Vinyl Audio, VIA Velocity™ Gigabit Ethernet, USB2.0, and 1394.

Advanced PCI Express Peripheral Support: VIA Flex Express Architecture enables connection of up to 4 high bandwidth PCI Express x1 peripheral devices directly through the North Bridge of the K8T890 chipset, ensuring low latency and wide memory access, as well as freeing up I/O bandwidth in the chipset’s South Bridge, which increasingly deals with the heavy bandwidth requirements of multiple HDDs, optical drives and USB/1394 devices.

Asynchronous Bus Architecture: The VIA K8T890’s asynchronous bus architecture enables power users to fully optimize their system settings for the ultimate PC gaming and entertainment experience, while maintaining platform stability.

Ultra V-Link Bus: Delivering data throughput speeds of up to 1066 MB/s from the VIA VT8237R Plus South Bridge to the VIA K8T890 North Bridge, the Ultra V-Link interface delivers the necessary bandwidth and low latency required by today’s increasingly demanding multimedia applications.

VIA Modular Architecture Platform: The VIA K8T890 is part of VIA’s unique Modular Architecture Platform (V-MAP), which minimizes design times and time-to-market for motherboard partners through a flexible, pin-compatible design approach for VIA core-logic solutions. Motherboard partners are able to cover multiple market segments with fewer design resources, and also benefit from a single unified driver base.

Native Serial ATA/RAID Support: The VIA VT8237R Plus South Bridge features a native Serial ATA/RAID controller, providing direct support for two 150MB/s Serial ATA devices, and an additional two (for a total of four SATA devices) in combination with the SATAlite™ interface. The integrated V-RAID controller supports native RAID 0, RAID 1, RAID 0+1 and JBOD, ensuring optimum data integrity and system performance, while the user-friendly V-RAID software interface enables easy disk array configuration and management.

VIA Vinyl Multichannel Audio Suite: Delivering rich, warm surround sound at resolutions as high as 24/96 through up to six or eight-channel outputs, the VIA Vinyl Audio and VIA Vinyl Gold Audio enable crisp, clear performance, representing the highest levels of audio quality in a mainstream integrated or onboard solution.

Unified VIA Hyperion 4in1 Drivers: VIA’s unified approach to drivers has been established for eight generations of chipsets, allowing end users to benefit from seamless hardware and software compatibility.